Several years ago in the 1990s, at an air show, my son and I were honored to meet him and talk to him a little about his life and THE mission.

He was a good man, and a talented heavy bomber pilot, selected by History and thrust by duty into a job he neither asked for nor sought glory from, who quietly trained to accomplish the mission, and did so. And over the years has not questioned, or apparently lost any sleep over doing that job, to the best of his ability.

He was a good man, and a talented heavy bomber pilot, selected by History and thrust by duty into a job he neither asked for nor sought glory from, who quietly trained to accomplish the mission, and did so. And over the years has not questioned, or apparently lost any sleep over doing that job, to the best of his ability.

RIP, Colonel. And Thanks...

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Good post, Polish. He was indeed a good man and courageous man. May he rest in peace.

You owe it to yourselves to see the Enola Gay in all the glory at the Smithsonian Air Museyum south edge of Dulles. Impressive ... attached. There will be many critics but the Tibbets mission and it successor but they saved millions of lives of service men/women and civilians from many countries. Most notable of course, the US and japan.

On your way out tio the museum stop by NRA headquarters, have lunch in the cafeteria and see the Nat'l Firearms museum.

PS, on our "Anniversary Trip" last week my wife and I visited the Ft Donelson National Battlefield, and it was a pretty good tour, better and more in depth than I expected, actually a neat tour by car after you leave the actual fort and battlements on the Cumberland River/Lake Barkley. And the LAST stop on the tour is the small "National Cemetery" there...even my wife, who is a trooper but is bored stiff at museums and battlefields (Oh WOW another cannon! Can we leave NOW?) enjoyed the quiet and inspiring stroll through it, seeing all the graves of the "unknown soldiers" of the Civil War, and then the "newer" ones, vets from WWII through Vietnam....it is truly moving...

And William, believe it or not I have not been to Washington yet, but "Bock's Car" is (was? It's been a while, I'll have to go back,,,) displayed at the Air Force Museum at Wright-Pat AFB in Dayton, about an hour from where I live, I have seen it several times, and it too is impressive...

Hmmm, wasn't it at Forts Henry and Donelson where that drunk damnyankee Grant first made his piratical attack on the Confederate Mississippi? I'm surprised he didn't trip and fall into the Mississippi, never to be heard from again.

On August 9, 1945, the Bock's Car dropped an atomic bomb (the "Fat Man") on Nagasaki, instantly killing tens of thousands of people. This marked only the second time in history that the atomic bomb had been used.

Just as its counterpart the Enola Gay, the Bock's Car had been altered to serve the purpose of carrying and deploying the heavy bomb. Adaptations included removing most of the armament; installing heavier racks to support the heavy bomb; and replacing the engines.

The plane was named after its Frederick Bock, the plane's commander. However, on the day of the Nagasaki bombing, Bock switched planes with Charles W. Sweeney, whose regular plane was The Great Artiste. The Bocks Car and its crew left Tinian in the Marianas Islands in the middle of the night. Its mission was to bomb the industrial city of Kokura, but the target was blocked by clouds and smog. The contingent plan was for bombing Nagasaki, so the plane flew to that city and dropped its cargo. This second bombing prompted the surrender of Japan and the war ended shortly thereafter.

The Bock's Car was restored, and, in 1961, it went on permanent display at the Air Force Museum, located at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.